Sunday, March 01, 2009

Gallery Players will present Parade at 2:30 p.m. Sunday and through March 15 at the Jewish Community Center, 1125 College Ave. Tickets cost $8 to $18. Call 614-231-2731 or visit www.jccgalleryplayers.org.

Gallery Players does justice to Parade, a Broadway musical about a terrible injustice in Atlanta in 1913 that left a haunting legacy.

Director Frank Barnhart knits together a large and capablecast in an epic and intimate staging of the musical drama, which opened yesterday to applause at the Jewish Community Center's Roth/Resler Theatre.

Composer-lyricist Jason Robert Brown (The Last Five Years) and author Alfred Uhry (Driving Miss Daisy) faithfully based Parade, a 1999 Tony award winner for best score and book, on the true story of a Jewish pencil-factory manager accused of raping and murdering a young female employee.

Without a superior performance in the central tragic role, Parade would fall well short of its potential power. At Gallery Players, Jon Schelb plays Leo Frank with haunting pathos from his early scenes of fish-out-of-water obliviousness and anxious bewilderment to later moments of palpable anguish and despair.

Together, Wheeler and Schelb become the soulful heart of the tragic story, generating poignant chemistry that slowly builds to the piercing duet, All the Wasted Time.

Drew Eberly adds go-getting energy and cynical humor in Real Big News and other scenes as the newspaper reporter who seizes his opportunity to cover a sensational murder and trial.

Among the other powerful singer-actors: Quentin Schofield-Peaks, as the black janitor who becomes a pivotal witness; Jay Rittberger, as the prejudiced and politically influenced prosecutor; and Joel B . Cohen, as the judge whose conscience pricks him near his deathbed.

Backed by a top-notch orchestra, the strong singing and acting extends deep into the ranks of the 25-member cast, which includes such vocal stalwarts as Eileen Howard (as mourning Mrs. Phagan), Danielle Mann and Dawn Farrell.

Rachel Bodner's formal period costumes, Chris Clapp's fluid scenic design and especially Jason Banks' colorful lighting help bring the bygone era and city to burnished life.

Barnhart's bravura staging, which builds on the bold stage design with sepia-tinged crowd tableaus and achingly private moments, seems to place the entire Atlanta community under the spotlight -- and on trial.

On both the court case and this stirring production, the verdict seems all too clear.